UPCOMING EVENTS

Google’s YouTube division signaled a couple of weeks ago that it was taking gaming and livestreaming more seriously when it signed gaming personality Geoff Keighley to livestream a bunch of game announcements at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big video game trade show. And on the eve of E3, Google is announcing that it will launch a YouTube Gaming app and web site as another way for gamers to stay up to speed with all things gaming.

Google says this is all about keeping gamers satisfied. But we also know that it wants to take on Amazon, which has pushed far into gamer’s hearts with its acquisition of Twitch. Twitch’s gameplay livestreaming service has garnered more than 100 million monthly active users, and YouTube has taken notice.

“Today, the gaming world is much more diverse than the one I grew up with, and the community has created new formats that have made gaming more collaborative and interactive,” said Alan Joyce, product manager of YouTube Gaming, in a blog post today. “On YouTube, gaming has spawned entirely new genres of videos, from let’s plays, walkthroughs, and speedruns to cooking and music videos. Now, it’s our turn to return the favor with something built just for gamers.”

He said that YouTube Gaming will keep players connected to the games, players, and culture that matters to them. It will have videos, livestreams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web — all in one place.

He said, “YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From ‘Asteroids’ to ‘Zelda,’ more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.”

You can keep up with your games and channels pretty easily, just by adding a game to your collection for quick access whenever you want to check up on the latest videos. You can subscribe to a channel and get a notification as soon as a livestream starts. And when you search for something like “call,” you’re likely to get “Call of Duty,” not “Call Me Maybe.”

YouTube Gaming will be available this summer, starting in the U.S. and U.K.